Senators Who Will Likely Decide The Next Supreme Court Justice

Also central to the vetting and interviewing process will be two associate counsels to the president: Rob Luther and David Morrell, said former Justice Department lawyer John Malcolm, now an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

Many liberals fear that with Kennedy gone, a Trump replacement will ensure that eventually Roe v. Wade will be overturned. He voted on the winning side of close decisions 76 percent of the time over his career, far more often than any other justice he served with except for Justice Neil Gorsuch, who joined the court past year.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Few justices have continued their tenures on the court after the age of 80, and only 11 justices have served while they were older than Kennedy.

The road to confirmation for Trump's pick is likely to be a contentious one, as Democrats are expected to push back.

In the run-up to selecting Gorsuch, Trump met with three contenders and White House officials vetted several more.

Kennedy, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, earned praise from both parties for the weight he put on the rights to privacy, dignity and freedom of speech. Trump is also considering Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amul Thapar, who could become the first Indian American to serve on the Supreme Court.

"We're going to have great judges, conservative, all picked by the Federalist Society", Trump said during an interview on Breitbart News radio.

"He's an outstanding talent", Trump said of Lee.

The Democrats - Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of IN and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota - are running for re-election IN November IN states Trump won IN 2016. Trump asked Manchin, the senator recalled.

Leonard Leo, an outside legal activist, will be another key member of the president's advisory team, sources said. "Judges, and particularly the Supreme Court, have been a resounding success of this administration".

Headlines this week were dominated by news that Justice Anthony Kennedy, a swing vote on the Supreme Court, will retire next month and that a man has been charged with killing five people at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis.